THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. — Joseph Stefano, who wrote the screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho” and was co-creator of television’s science-fiction anthology series “The Outer Limits,” has died. He was 84. Stefano died August 25 at Los Robles Hospital and Medical Center, a funeral director, Elaine Munoz, said. His death’s cause was not disclosed.

Stefano graduated in 1940 from South Philadelphia High School, and he went to New York as an aspiring entertainer. He played piano, sang, danced, and wrote music and lyrics.

He toured with a modern dance troupe and worked temporary jobs as a typist. He met his future bride, Marilyn Epstein, in a bar in Manhattan in 1953.

“I was trying to make a choice on the jukebox, and this great-looking man in black jacket, jeans, and boots said, ‘Play that one, I wrote it,'” she told the Philadelphia Inquirer. They soon married. Stefano’s big TV break came in the 1950s when he was hired as a writer for the “Ted Mack Family Hour.”

He also wrote a number of scripts, including “The Black Orchid,” which was made into a 1958 movie starring Sophia Loren and Anthony Quinn.